Chords + Lyrics | Down Under
Intro
||: Bm A | Bm G A :||
Verse 1
||: Bm A | Bm G A :||
Traveling in a fried-out Kombi.
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie.
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous.
And she took me in and gave me breakfast, and she said:
Chorus 1
||: D A | Bm G A :||
Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder.
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.
Instrumental 1
||: Bm A | Bm G A :||
Verse 2
Buying bread from a man in Brussels.
He was six-foot-four and full of muscle.
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
And he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich, and he said:
Chorus 2
I come from a land down under.
Where beer does flow and men chunder.
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover, yeah.
Instrumental 2
||: Bm A | Bm G A :|| x6
Verse 3
Lyin’ in a den in Bombay.
With a slack jaw, and not much to say.
I said to the man, “Are you trying to tempt me?
Because I come from the land of plenty”, and he said:
Chorus 3
Do you come from a land down under? (Oh, yeah, yeah).
Where women glow and men plunder.
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? (Ah-ha).
You better run, you better take cover.
Chorus 4
(‘Cause we are) Living in a land down under.
Where women glow and men plunder.
(Can) Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? (thunder)
You better run, you better take cover.
Chorus 5
Living in a land down under.
Where women glow and men plunder.
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? (Oh, yeah)
You better run, you better take cover.
Chorus 6
(We are) Living in a land down under (oh yea).
Where women glow and men plunder.
(Yeah, yeah) Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? (Yeah, yeah, thunder).
You better run, you better take cover.
Chorus 7
Living in a land down under (Living in a land down under).
Where women glow and men plunder.
(Oh) Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.
Down Under Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning Down Under. I’ve used stem separation to extract the guitar while keeping the drums, bass, keys, horns, and vocals intact.
After studying the chords and TAB, use my backing tracks to prepare for playing this tune with a band.
Should you want to play along with the original recording instead, you need to tune your guitar sharp to 442Hz. In the backing tracks, I’ve done this job for you by tuning it to 440Hz.
Chord Progressions – What’s Going On?
Built on the incredibly simple yet effective idea of resolving from IV – V (the second most common progression in popular music) to either VI or I, the verse chords of Down Under move like this:
||: Bm (VI) A (V) | Bm (VI) G (IV) A (V) :||
Whereas the chorus follows this progression:
||: D (I) A (V) | Bm (VI) G (IV) A (V) :||
This subtle shift—resolving to Bm in the verse and D in the chorus—creates a striking contrast. The verse feels reflective, while the chorus soars triumphantly, a change mirrored in the lyrics.
Perhaps most importantly, the song’s playful humour is key to its success.
Without that fun-loving, cheeky energy (helped by the flute!), Down Under wouldn’t have had the same lasting appeal. Its charm lies in the fact that it’s simply fun.
Writing a memorable, upbeat song is no easy task, and Down Under stands as one of the best examples of how to do it well.
To play this on a single guitar, we need to blend the bass line with chords while leaving enough space to maintain the groove.
I’ve designed some TAB for this, and for extra fun, I’ve also included that intricate flute melody! Find it further down this guitar lesson.
Once you’ve worked through the various TAB ideas, having a simple chord chart can be handy for gigs. Here’s one I made for you.
Down Under Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Down Under chord chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Down Under iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
Down Under | TAB
This is an extremely simple song—still, playing it on one acoustic guitar isn’t.
What you have to do to make it fun (which you also need to keep in line with the general vibe!) is be able to improvise your part.
To achieve this, we need to create a solid foundation. Here’s idea 1—we’ll build on this.
When you can play it as written, make sure you snap off all 8th-note chord rhythms (indicated using a little dot above the stem).
Doing this will vastly improve the part—however, it still won’t be great. Next, let’s alternate that bass!
This is an improvement. Make sure you’re playing all chords short!
Let’s now try to make this sound good. We’ll do this by leaving space. Here’s the first idea for that:
Instantly, it sounds better—it grooves better. Remember to still play all chords short! Here’s the next idea:
Make sure you can play this well before you move on to the final verse idea, which looks like this:
This last one is my favourite. We now play E shapes for the G and A and ignore the initial bass notes.
I’d now encourage you to go the other way—use idea 5 as your starting point, and then add a note here and there from previous examples for variation.
Ultimately, you’ll just improvise how you play Down Under’s verse.
Chorus
Let’s move on and do the same to the chorus. Here’s the foundation:
Next up, alternating that bass! You’re still snapping the chords off early, right?
Let’s start taking stuff out—this is how you create a groove, by playing less and leaving space.
Here’s another idea, now using barre chord shapes further up the neck.
The final TAB example for playing the chorus looks like this:
Blend these until you feel so comfortable playing with the backing tracks that you can stop staring at all these TABs and just let it happen.
Before I sign off, here’s the flute melody after chorus one. This is tricky!
Down Under Chords: Continue Learning
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